Turkish authorities ban TKP event on Reza Zarrab case and corruption

The governorship of Ankara banned an event of the Communist Party of Turkey regarding the Zarrab case and corruption in Turkey under the pretext of the state of emergency act, showing the fear of the Justice and Development Party government

The governorship of Ankara banned an event of the Communist Party of Turkey (TKP) regarding Iranian-Turkish gold trader Zarrab case and the Turkish government’s corruption.

The event scheduled to be held on Dec. 7 at Nâzım Hikmet Cultural Center in Ankara's Dikmen district with the attendance of Özgür Şen, member of the Central Committee of the TKP, was banned by the governorship on the pretext of the state of emergency law. The ban imposed on the TKP event, "The Zarrab case, the offshore documents, corruption: what should the people do?", shows the fear of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).

The TKP event would put on the agenda some critical issues such as President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's family members' offshore accounts in the Isle of Man, the ongoing Zarrab case in the U.S. regarding the Turkish-Iranian gold trader Reza Zarrab’s bribery links to the AKP government and the people's alternative amid such a dirty capitalist mechanism.

Reza Zarrab has been taking the stand in a federal court in Manhattan since November 29, testifying he had paid jaw-dropping bribes to a Turkish government minister to evade the US economic sanctions against Iran.

Zarrab told jurors in the court that Erdoğan personally authorised a transaction on behalf of Iran. At the time, Erdoğan was Turkey's prime minister. The testimony marks the first time the U.S. case has implicated Erdoğan, who had railed against the prosecution and lobbied senior U.S. officials to release Zarrab.

ANKARA GOVERNOR: 'EVENT MIGHT LEAD TO PROVOCATIONS'

The official notice dated Dec. 6 and undersigned by Ankara governor Ercan Topaca justifies the ban on the TKP event with a farcical notice stating that it would "incite sections of the population to enmity or hatred towards another group on the basis of social class, race, religion, or sectarian or regional difference,", adding that the event might lead to provocations because of social sensitivities.

Relying on Turkey’s state of emergency act to ban the event, the Ankara governor says that legal and administrative procedures would be launched if the event were held in defiance of the law. However, the governorship notice apparently shows for which social class the ban was imposed on the TKP event.

TKP: THEY FEAR OF THE MEETING OF WORKERS

Meanwhile, the Ankara organization of TKP has responded the governorship with a public statement which says that the process began with the unlawful custodies of party members who publicly announced the event.

"Workers can be deceived neither with bans nor with conspiracy theories of the pro-government media," the TKP statement puts forth, indicating that the ban of the event shows the desperation of Turkey's bourgeois establishment.

Declaring that the TKP will continue to meet the workers in order to organize the struggle for an egalitarian and free society despite all kind of bans, the TKP concludes the statement with a call on the workers to get organized for the struggle for socialism against the government, its local and foreign capitalist accomplices and the imperialist centres.